DIA: 10,000 passengers impacted by problem with trains

A large crowd is seen at DIA Friday morning after the train system broke down. (Linda Shapley, The Denver Post)

Lines snaked through the main hall at Denver International Airport on Oct. 12, 2012. (Kristen Leigh Painter | The Denver Post)

The trains at Denver International Airport — the primary artery for shuttling passengers between the main terminal and the three concourses — experienced a massive slowdown Friday morning, causing significant delays for as many as 10,000 passengers.

The system, hit by a computer-software glitch, shut down at about 7:30 a.m., triggering a response by the airport's emergency-operation systems. Within about three minutes, employees arrived at the scene to manually drive the trains, but the situation continued to escalate.

"There were people on the trains, but all were able to get off safely," said Laura Coale, a DIA spokeswoman.

Personnel manually overrode the system and operated for about 20 minutes, limiting the capacity and speed.

Security lines were backed up after trains malfunctioned this morning at DIA. (Kristen Painter, The Denver Post)

Only four trains were operating in manual mode, compared with the usual five, and they were forced to drive at a slower pace.

While the initial problem was resolved quickly, the stinging effects were felt throughout the day. Friday mornings are a peak time for airport traffic, so as passengers rushed down the stairwell to the train, the crowd grew quickly.

"Even 20 minutes is a long time to back up these lines," Coale said.

The airlines treated the situation like a weather disaster and worked with affected passengers to get them on the first available flight at no additional cost.

"The trains were down for about an hour, and that does have a significant impact to our operations and our customers," said Chris Mainz, Southwest Airlines spokesman. "It will just be kind of a ripple effect."

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Denver's three largest airlines — Southwest, United and Frontier — attempted to hold as many flights for as long as possible but had to leave without many of their ticket holders.

The train situation delayed 30 United flights, 20 Frontier flights and between 45 and 55 Southwest flights, with an average delay time of about 15 minutes.

Julie Volckens, who was trying to catch a flight to Pensacola, Fla., for her father's 80th birthday, got caught in the middle of the mayhem. She had passed through security and descended the staircase to the main terminal's train platform just as the trains were slowing down.

"There were hundreds of people crammed into the well. Trains would come and go, and no one knew what was going on," Volckens said. "There were screaming babies and elderly people. ... It was epic. I mean, it was like Snowstorm Airport."

Travelers were then directed to go back through security at the A concourse checkpoint, a smaller security zone.

Passengers flying out of the B and C concourses were shuttled to their gates by bus. After the mad dash toward checkpoint A, the single security line was in the thousands, snaking across the A bridge and back across the main terminal's mezzanine.

Airport officials were immediately enlisted to assist the Transportation Security Administration with line management, and additional police officers were assigned to manage the situation. Lines were rerouted through the baggage-claim hallways once the trains were switched to automatic mode at 8:45 a.m.

But the passenger backlog continued to affect security lines until noon.

The last time DIA had a train problem of this magnitude was April 26, 1998, when a loose wheel on one of the trains damaged a routing cable in the tunnel and cut the system's power, shutting it down for about seven hours. On that day, a fleet of 30 shuttle buses was used to move passengers from the terminal to the gates.

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